C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 02

by The Wood Nymph;the Cranky Saint

  He gestured up the valley. "The ducal wizard was telling me about it while we rolled up the nets. I gather there's a hermitage, and a wood nymph, and a river that shoots directly out of the hillside."

  I sensed something behind Nimrod's casual words—or thought I did. I wished I knew him better. His words did not at any rate seem to have any hidden meaning to the duchess. She smiled. "It's certainly worth seeing, and we won't be closer anytime soon. Just wait until I get this last net wound up."

  "I must get back to the royal castle," I said.

  "We'll have to go within a quarter mile of the Holy Grove anyway to get out of the valley," said the duchess. "I at any rate have no intention of scrambling up these valley walls! It shouldn't take long to show the grove to Nimrod. He is my huntsman, Wizard. If you want his services, you'll have to wait until I'm done with him."

  We rode back up toward the head of the valley, Nimrod striding at the duchess's stirrup. The sun had by now moved past noon, and we seemed to be progressing very slowly. When we reached the open area below the waterfall, Diana pointed out the toeholds carved in the cliff face.

  "It wouldn't be as dangerous as it looks," said Nimrod, looking upward with an interested frown. "The cliff is not perfectly vertical but angled, and the toeholds are well placed."

  "As I know well," said the duchess. "When I was about fifteen, I climbed down here myself, just to see if I could do it. Be flattered," she said to all of us. "I've never told anyone about it before."

  "You told me," said Nimrod with a smile. "That's part of the reason I'd been eager to see the valley."

  "I told you?" Diana turned toward him with clear surprise. "But—" She recollected herself and laughed. "Of course I did. I'd just forgotten. All right, then, you already know that the young heiress to the duchy wanted to see the valley, but not to see it the way any ordinary girl would!"

  Evrard appeared to have thought of a new way to impress his employer. "Wait until you meet the wood nymph!" he said to the duchess and Nimrod.

  "I've only seen her once before," said the duchess. "That is, I've always hoped it was the wood nymph, although I could never be certain. It was the time I just mentioned, when I climbed down. There was a girl in the grove, who seemed both to be my age and to be a thou­ sand years old. She had remarkable violet eyes. She looked at me a moment without speaking, then disappeared."

  "You have to be a wizard to be able to call a nymph," said Evrard confidently, "—or," he added after a second, "be someone to whom the nymph wants to talk anyway."

  We left our horses and walked up to the pool and the shrine of the Holy Toe. Diana and Nimrod went first, she swinging her riding crop and whistling, and he walking with very stiff shoulders and silent footfalls. Much as I wanted to be on our way, his behavior intrigued me. I glanced toward Evrard as we came along behind, but he did not seem interested in the pair before us. The hermit came out and blessed them, as Evrard and I waited a few yards away. Nimrod's face was very still, and I could read no expression in it.

  "You know," said Evrard, low enough I hoped that the hermit would not overhear, "I'm not very impressed with this Cranky Saint. Wouldn't a really powerful saint make it clear to everybody exactly what he wanted, and then blast those entrepreneurs with lightning?"

  This seemed more like a question for Joachim than for me, but I was spared from having to answer by the hermit. "I trust your day is going well, my sons, with God's help," he called to us with a smile.

  In spite of the smile and friendly tone, I immediately felt guilty. I took his comment as a gentle reminder of the responsibilities with which he had earlier charged me. But at least he did not summon us to join Nimrod and Diana before the shrine.

  They still knelt at the hermit's feet, his hands resting lightly on their hair. While the hermit looked toward me, I saw the duchess turn toward Nimrod. Their eyes met, and slowly he began to smile. In return she gave a sudden, secret grin.

  I would have liked to conclude she was only mocking the old hermit and his piety. It was better than the alternative, which came with immediate if irrational conviction: that she had decided to treat this blessing as some sort of renegade marriage ceremony.

  I shook my head. This was ridiculous. On top of everything else, I seemed to be losing my good sense. Diana and Nimrod thanked the hermit for his blessing, rose, and came to join us.

  At last, I thought, we could start for the castle. But now Nimrod appeared very interested in the spring, where the river shot out of the side of the cliff. He folded up his tall frame to crawl along the narrow, damp shelf at the edge of the river, back into the cliff. The rest of us watched and waited as his feet disappeared from view into the blackness.

  In a moment we heard his voice, echoing hollowly. "I think it opens up a little back here. It's too dark to see well, but—" A splash cut off whatever else he might have intended to say. In a moment he reemerged, laughing and wet all along one side. "Whew, that water's cold," he said as he stood up and wrung out his hair. "You'd need a torch to explore the cave properly. Even in the dim light from the entrance, the first big room looked as though it was festooned with colored icicles."

  "There can't be anything in there very interesting, besides rocks," said Evrard impatiently. "Come on, and you can meet the nymph."

  Nimrod's short visit to the Holy Grove seemed to be growing longer and longer, but I felt powerless to do anything about it. For two days the valley had beguiled me; now I only wanted to get out of it. I tried to persuade myself that Dominic had paid a short, friendly visit to the old wizard and was now safely back at the castle.

  Evrard led the way, along the little pebble-marked paths through the grove, to the tree that I thought was the nymph's tree. But here he hesitated. "I don't see my footprint."

  "The ground's damp anyway, and it's rained recently," I said. "A footprint won't last long."

  "Or maybe it's the wrong tree."

  Now he had me confused. "You should know better than I," I said pointedly. We moved back, looking at all the adjacent trees, then at other beeches further away. I caught the duchess giving Nimrod an amused smile.

  "No, I think it must have been the first tree after all," said Evrard after ten minutes. But somehow none of the trees now seemed like the tree we had stood beneath only a short time before.

  "Try using the spell to call her," I said in a low voice. The duchess would not find this amusing much longer.

  Evrard frowned, bit his lip, frowned again, and started on the spell. He finished with a flourish and looked up expectantly. There was a long silence, broken only by the soft murmur of the leaves and the rushing of the river.

  "I thought you were going to introduce us to the wood nymph, Wizard," said Diana testily.

  "Maybe she doesn't want to talk to so many people at the same time," I said, then realized that by speaking for Evrard I was giving the impression that he needed my protection.

  "Daimbert," said Evrard, who seemed to realize this too, "how about if you and Nimrod go back to the horses, and I'll see if the nymph will come out for the duchess and me alone." He moved to another tree and, with a good show of confidence, started on the spell again as Nimrod and I left the grove.

  "The horned rabbits must have been frustrating prey," I commented as we scrambled down the path beside the waterfall, "since they disintegrate as soon as you catch them." I was no longer interested in the horned rabbits, but if he talked I hoped to be able to see more of the edge of tension I thought I could feel running under the huntsman's apparent good humor.

  He smiled unexpectedly. "For me, they've provided highly satisfactory hunting," he said. "But I must say, it's been more comfortable since I worked out they were neither monsters from the land of dragons, nor creatures made with black magic, but only something my lady the duchess requested from her ducal wizard."

  I turned to stare at him. "Did she tell you that?"

  "No, but I'm good at guessing," he answered easily.

  We sat down on the grass
near our horses. I glanced toward the grove, wondering if Evrard had had any luck. It was rapidly growing late, yet I hated to call him away from an opportunity to show off his magical abilities to his employer.

  I turned back toward Nimrod's well-chiseled profile. He seemed deep in thought. "You still haven't told me why you came to Yurt," I said.

  He took a sudden, sharp breath, and then his eyes twinkled at me as his shoulders relaxed again. "Maybe I have private reasons for being interested. And, as I told you before, hunters keep track of what needs hunting."

  "But you seemed to know about the great horned rabbits almost before we did."

  He only smiled and shook his head.

  If he wanted to be mysterious, I could do some guessing of my own. If he had known the duchess before, perhaps some years earlier when she had spent several seasons in the City, he might have wanted to enter the kingdom to reestablish their acquaintance, and have preferred for reasons of his own to come incognito. The appearance of the great horned rabbits would have provided a useful excuse for an excellent hunter. But I was still not sure what, if any, connection there might be between Nimrod, the Cranky Saint, and the money-making enterprise at the top of the cliff.

  "Had you learned about Saint Eusebius of Yurt before you came here?" I asked cautiously.

  "The duchess told me a little about him," he replied, equally cautiously. "Why?"

  His answer seemed deliberately to leave in doubt whether he knew anything beyond what she had said. Before I could formulate a response, I was distracted by movement on the road down into the valley.

  My first wild thought, in spite of all my attempts at calm rationality, was that it was the old wizard's monster, but then I saw it was instead a group of horsemen. Nimrod had seen them too and stood up. With the aid of a far-seeing spell I could tell that there were four mounted men, all dressed as priests and followed by a pack horse. The man riding at the head was Joachim.

  III

  I jumped at once to my feet, vastly relieved. With Joachim here, I could turn over the hermit, the Holy Toe, and the entrepreneurs to him. I realized that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I also hoped he would be able to help deal with the old wizard's monster, even though, as I had often told him myself, magic was much more efficient than religion if one had to face magical creatures. I only restrained myself from flying to meet him by the recollection that the priests from the church that wanted the Cranky Saint's relics might not look kindly on magic being practiced only a short distance from the Holy Grove.

  "Who's coming?" asked the duchess behind me. I had not heard her approach.

  "It's the royal chaplain and the priests he was expecting." I turned to see Evrard flash me a grin of triumph.

  None of the others seemed interested in the arrival of some priests in the valley. Diana started telling Nimrod about the nymph, who had apparently spoken briefly with them. Leaving them behind, I started down the road to meet the riders.

  I prepared myself for a formal, even distant greeting. Joachim might not want to advertise his friendship with a wizard.

  But then he lifted his head, gave a highly unexpected but quite genuine smile, and swung down off his horse. "I'm delighted to see you, Daimbert," he said, wringing my hand. "I'd assumed you were off chasing horned rabbits across the fields of Yurt. I didn't dare hope you might be here."

  He turned to introduce me to the other priests who, as I expected, had come from the distant church where Saint Eusebius had originally made his vocation. I looked quickly at their faces, wondering if they might be the purported pilgrims who had climbed down the cliff to the grove. But they were completely unfamiliar. They did, however, all give me highly suspicious looks.

  Joachim looped his horse's reins over his arms and walked beside me, while the priests, still mounted, rode behind. He appeared much more at peace than when I had last seen him.

  "I decided two mornings ago to meet these priests at the cathedral city," he said, "in order to have a chance to talk to the bishop. I'm afraid I slipped away very early and rather secretly. I wanted a fast horse, to be sure of reaching the cathedral city before the priests left there for Yurt."

  His black eyes flashed at me with what in someone else would have been mischievous enjoyment. "The fastest horse in the stables, of course, used to be the queen's stallion, until she sold it when the little prince was born. So I took Prince Dominic's new one. Naturally, I didn't tell him what I was doing. The stable boy was still too sleepy to give me an argument. When we all got back to the castle late last night, Dominic wasn't there."

  This made it complete. The regent would now be furious with all of us. There were few horses in the royal stables that could carry him easily, now that he had gotten so heavy, and he had been inordinately proud of the enormous but light-footed chestnut he had bought that spring. And for the chaplain, of all people, to take it!

  But this thought was driven out by another. Why had Dominic not been back at the castle? It was only a short distance down to the old wizard's cottage in the woods. But if the royal regent and Yurt's best knights had come hammering on the green door, anything might have happened.

  But I didn't dare say anything to the chaplain about this with the priests so close behind. "That's not Dominic's stallion," I said instead, looking back at the mount Joachim was leading.

  "Of course not. His is a wonderful stallion, very fast and nearly tireless, but it deserved a rest once the need for speed was over." He smiled again. At this rate he would soon break his previous record for most smiles in an hour. "It was good to see the bishop. I should have gone there before, rather than relying on messages."

  By now we had reached the others. Joachim performed the introductions quickly. Nimrod appeared highly startled to see the priests. He stepped quickly back into the shadow of the trees, turning his face away, while they too stared at him in surprise.

  "And I have a message you'll all be interested in," Joachim said. "Since almost everyone else in the castle was gone, the constable had me come to the telephone when the king and queen called last night. The baby prince has taken his first steps."

  Evrard smiled politely, and Diana said, "How sweet." I alone was as delighted to hear this news as Joachim. I was also intensely relieved the royal family was not here in Yurt but rather some­ where safe, where a baby's first steps could be the most exciting event.

  The priests of Saint Eusebius left us and headed toward the shrine. The duchess glanced upward. The sun had long since passed from the narrow valley, and the afternoon sky far above was a pale blue. "It's late," she said. "We'd better get started if we're heading back to the royal castle. We won't get there tonight, but I've got a tent big enough for at least four."

  Before I could answer, Evrard said, "I don't know about Daimbert, but I'm staying here. Just leave me a little more to eat, my lady—the wood nymph's berries aren't very filling!"

  I imagined five or six things that Diana might say in the short pause before she answered, but then she only said, very quietly, "I'd somehow imagined that my ducal wizard would be able to help me with magical problems and magical creatures."

  Evrard refused to take the hint. "I thought I'd already helped you with magical creatures," he said with a wink.

  Diana took a short breath through her nose, not quite a snort.

  "I myself—" I started.

  But Joachim didn't give me a chance to finish. "Will you stay with us this evening, Daimbert?" he asked, turning his enormous dark eyes on me. "The priests and I will pass the night near the hermitage, and I'd very much like your counsel."

  This was becoming like a frustrating dream, in which one runs and runs but never reaches the goal. I had been trying to leave the valley since early this morning, but now I was trapped back here for another night. Joachim had never before, that I could recall, asked specifically for my counsel.

  "Of course," I said. There was nothing else I could have said.

  In a few minutes, Evrard had disappeared back tow
ard the nymph's end of the grove, carrying bread and cheese from the duchess's supplies; she and Nimrod had started along the road that would lead them back out of the valley; and Joachim and I went up to the shrine of the Holy Toe.

  The priests were kneeling at the altar and showed no immediate sign of seizing the golden reliquary of the toe and making a dash for it. Two of them were middle-aged, and the third, who kept giving the others nervous glances, was younger, probably about the same age as Joachim and I. Once they and the old hermit had finished exchanging blessings, we all started back down the valley.

  "We knew, of course," said one of the older priests, "that Saint Eusebius had retreated to a grove far from the bustle of the city when he decided to become a hermit." The priest was as round as an apple, and he breathed hard after the scramble down the track by the falls, but his eyes did not have any of the good humor I had always associated with apples. "But somehow I had not expected that now, a full fifteen hundred years later, the site of his hermitage would still be located in such a God-forsaken wilderness."

  "God never forsakes any land of His creation," said the other older priest, who was as thin as the other was round. He spoke intensely, and his eyes seemed to gleam.

  "We'll have to sleep rough tonight," continued the round priest, paying no attention to this comment. Then he held up a hand, as though to forestall a remark no one in fact had made. "But we must not grumble. God demands far harder of those dedicated to His service."

  "And we must follow to the death," agreed the thin priest. He whirled on their younger colleague. "I hope you understand fully!"

  "Fully!" the young priest cried in panic.

  I didn't dare meet Joachim's eye. But he seemed calm and peaceful. I was quite sure I would not have been as calm after more than two days in these priests' company. I reflected how fortunate I was to have come to a royal court where Joachim was the chaplain, rather than someone like either of the older priests. Whatever he wanted of me, I fervently hoped we could finish our discussion tonight.

  "Tomorrow," said the thin priest, "we shall pray that the saint make his will unequivocally clear to us—that is, his will that we take his relics back with us."